Proper Care and Feeding of Your Astrophysicist
by Cora Clavia
Summary: I believe I ordered you to get a life, Carter.


Set early season 4.

* * *

"Major."

Sam looks up to find the colonel standing in the doorway of her lab, dressed in civvies, hands in his pockets as he stares her down.

"Sir? Do you need something?"

He cocks his head, and she feels herself flush involuntarily under his frank look, like there's something he knows but hasn't told her. How does he do that? He can fluster her more easily than anyone else she knows.

"We need to talk, Major."

"We - do? - sir?"

She's just finished a particularly stubborn system of equations for the calculations she's doing to re-calibrate the Gate's dampeners, and it takes her a moment to come back to Earth after modular equations. So to speak.

"You're officially out of line, Carter."

Sam blinks, thinking back through the past several days. SG-1's on stand-down thanks to Daniel getting loaned out to an excavation team, and she's been catching up on the work that's piled up in her lab. She's only really seen the colonel occasionally, when he pokes his head in and she magically finds her coffee cup refilled.

So what the hell is he talking about?

"Sir? I don't understand."

"I believe I ordered you to get a life."

Oh.

So he's noticed she hasn't left her lab in - _what day is it, again?_

"Sir -"

"Ah!" He forestalls her objections with a hand in the air. "No. I distinctly remember it. And because of your blatant disregard for this direct order, I'm going to have to order you to come with me right now."

"But sir -"

"On your feet, Major. Science will still be here when you get back."

* * *

It's mildly embarrassing to be dragged out of her lab like a recalcitrant teenager, but Jack O'Neill is sort of the exception to every rule. And she certainly doesn't see him as a teacher.

Well. Maybe -

 _Don't go there, Sam._

She follows him to the elevator, but when he hits the button to go to the surface, she frowns. "Are we going topside?"

"Trust me, Carter."

She does. She really does.

So she walks with him through security, out towards parking, before her patience finally breaks and her curiosity gets the better of her. "Where are we going, sir?"

"Anywhere you want, Carter." She blinks, turns to find him smiling at her. "As long as it's not here."

"Sir?"

"Word on base is, you haven't left your lab since this morning. You've been staring at screens way too long," he tells her. "There's not much I can do to help you. But I _can_ tell when you need a break."

 _And keep my coffee cup full_.

Jack O'Neill: full bird colonel. Black ops legend.

Babysitter.

* * *

Once they've both climbed into his truck, he pulls out of the parking structure, past security, out onto the streets, and Sam lets out a breath.

"What?"

"It's been a while since I saw the sky," she admits.

"See? You have to check that every once in a while," he says. "Make sure it's still there."

It's not particularly funny, like most of his jokes, but she smiles anyway, falling silent as she stares out the window. His truck is old and battered, the upholstery worn, but it smells good. It smells like him. Soft music floats through the speakers, something easy and untroubled, and she thinks maybe she could doze off, given enough time.

Sam steals a sidelong glance at the colonel, studying the line of his profile. His face is impassive, calm and easy, as he turns the wheel smoothly. It's later than she'd realized; his five o'clock shadow is starting to come in, dusting his jaw with stubble.

She swallows hard, forcing her eyes front and center.

He must have noticed, though; he briefly looks back at her. "What?"

She needs to be more subtle. Or just...not look at him like that.

"Do you often abduct your subordinates, Colonel?"

"Only when they're insubordinate."

She sighs. "With respect, sir, 'get a life' is not a clear order."

"It's perfectly clear," he scoffs.

"Without a stated definition of what you consider a 'life' to be, and then an equally clear understanding of how one is to 'get' it, your order's not valid." He turns to look at her over the tops of his sunglasses, and Sam realizes that she's not usually such a smartass to him. Oops. She hastily adds, "Sir."

"Nice save." He sounds amused, more than anything, so she's probably okay. "It's not that, Carter. I just - I know you get lost in your work. And you've been working all week. You looked like you needed a break, but you're too stubborn to take one. So yeah. I'm kidnapping you. But I'll put you right back where I found you. Promise."

The thought that he's been keeping tabs on her - _watching her closely_ , her unhelpful mind supplies - is a flattering one, and yet again, Sam wishes her skin wasn't so pale, because when she blushes, it's painfully obvious. It's bad enough to be physically attracted to her CO. It doesn't help when he does things like this.

By now, they're outside the area of Cheyenne Mountain, and the city of Colorado Springs sits before them. The colonel pulls the truck to a stop along a small parking lot, and turns to her, pulling off his sunglasses.

"So?" He prompts. "What are we doing, Major? Your call."

She forces back the flood of illicit ideas that swamp her mind, because despite what this may look like, it's not a date. It's not. Even if it kind of looks like one. And they're not going to take advantage of the fact that the cab of his truck is roomy enough to -

She shrugs. "We could get ice cream?"

He grins, that boyish grin he saves for her, the one that makes her catch her breath..

"Sounds perfect."

* * *

Colorado Springs being a military town, no one at the ice cream shop bats an eye at Sam's BDU pants and black shirt.

It's a balmy, breezy sunny day - she'd almost missed it - so rather than sit inside, they opt to take their ice cream to the bench outside, behind the row of shops.

He stretches out beside her on the bench, looking out over the river below as he tucks into his cone. "Ice cream was the right idea."

"I can't take full credit, sir." At his questioning glance, she shrugs. "I was under duress. You kidnapped me."

He grins at that, slow, disarming. "You may technically be a damsel, Carter, but you're hardly in distress."

Sam flushes. Because he's not _trying_ to flirt with her. He's not. And yet somehow he manages to make the lamest things sound unbearably attractive.

She's a grown woman, a functional adult with a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics. And she has a crush on the man who grabbed her hand, took her out for ice cream, and insisted on her getting extra sprinkles.

 _Ridiculous_.

She bites her lip, focusing on catching the drips of chocolate from her waffle cone. He hands over one of his extra napkins before she can ask.

She'd rather not admit it, but he was right. She really did need a break. And this is just about perfect.

"So were you having fun with your science doohickeys?"

She huffs out a laugh. 'Science doohickeys.' She works with some of the most advanced technology on Earth. "Yes, sir. Believe it or not, I do enjoy it."

The colonel nods slowly. "Hope you're not too upset I dragged you away from it."

"Well, it's a good thing you didn't come in any earlier. I'd just finished a line of problems when you showed up."

He doesn't say anything, just focuses on his ice cream, but Sam catches a hit of...something.

It's barely a look, the faintest hesitation in his movements, but she knows Jack O'Neill well enough to know when he's obfuscating. Or trying to, anyway.

"Sir? You - did you wait until I hit a stopping point to drag me out?"

"Now how would I know a thing like that, Carter? You're the scientist."

He looks back at her with very nearly convincing innocence, but she knows him too well. She's very aware that sometimes Jack O'Neill plays dumb. He likes to defer to her and Daniel in intellectual matters, but it didn't take her long to recognize it as deflection, rather than actual density.

He may rail about her tendency to get lost in her 'boring' science and math, but she's about 90% sure that he hovered outside the door, waiting to see when she looked up from her work, before barging in to drag her out for a break.

"Thank you, sir."

"No idea what you mean."

She surprises herself, leaning slightly to nudge him with her shoulder. "Really, Colonel. Thank you."

When he looks down at her, Sam lets out a breath. His eyes have a warmth in them she can't quite pin down, and when he looks at her like this, she can almost imagine -

He reaches for her face, his fingers cupping her chin as he leans closer, and heat flares in her veins. Her eyes flutter shut involuntarily, but instead of the warmth of his lips on hers, she feels his thumb brush over her skin, just skirting the corner of her mouth.

It feels like a caress, so delicate she almost misses it, and when she finally opens her eyes, he's watching her with an intensity in his dark eyes that makes her freeze.

His hand leaves her face, and she sees the smear of chocolate on his thumb, the melted ice cream he wiped off her face.

He licks it off his thumb, and as she feels her cheeks flaming, he gives her that lopsided smile again.

"Sweet."

* * *

As he pulls back into the parking structure at the SGC, he clears his throat. "Look, I know your work is important, yadda yadda. Will you at least try to take it easy? - as in, go home every once in a while?"

"Or what? You'll kidnap me again?"

He shrugs. "If I have to."

There's an easy warmth between them, something intangible in the air. It always feels like this, she thinks. There's the team, of course, but there are moments where it's just the two of them, moments she never tells anyone about. When the tension melts into something softer, something fluid and delicate and utterly inevitable.

It should probably worry her more than it does, but she can never bring herself to turn away.

Sam unbuckles her seat belt, but pauses before climbing out.

"Thanks for the ice cream, sir."

"Anytime."


End file.
